


finishing is a sport

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Gen, Howard Stark Is a Dick, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Maria Stark's A+ Parenting, Maria Stark's Good Parenting, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Siberia Scene in Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:35:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29073420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: Tony wakes up softly, gently, the kind of waking up when you don't even realise it until you're fully rooted in the land of the living. Said land is all pale light that you can see through your eyelids, and the sound of machines whirring and muttering, and the sheets against his skin, scratchy-soft.Tony opens his eyes a crack, clears his throat. “Am I dead?” he asks the ceiling, wondering if anyone will ever answer or if he’ll live in the softness forever like this, in the beeping and the white light. It's not too terrible a fate, all things considered.There's a creak, a shuffle and Rhodey’s warm familiar voice, “No, Tony. You're not dead." He just sounds tired.“Rhodey,” he says instead of damn it.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 124





	finishing is a sport

Tony wakes up softly, gently, the kind of waking up when you don't even realise it until you're fully rooted in the land of the living. Said land is all pale light that you can see through your eyelids, and the sound of machines whirring and muttering, and the sheets against his skin, scratchy-soft. 

Tony opens his eyes a crack, clears his throat. “Am I dead?” he asks the ceiling, wondering if anyone will ever answer or if he’ll live in the softness forever like this, in the beeping and the white light. It's not too terrible a fate, all things considered.

There's a creak, a shuffle and Rhodey’s warm familiar voice, “No, Tony. You're not dead." He just sounds tired.

“Rhodey,” he says instead of _damn it._

“Tony,” Rhodey says, and metal creaks as he moves, out of the corner of his eye. 

Tony turns his head and recoils. Rhodey’s sitting in a fucking wheelchair.

He chokes on his cry and tries to move, to hold him and fix him and fix what he’s done, but he’s pulled back by the plastic in his arm and a sharp jerk of pain.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, his voice high in concern. He moves closer to the bed, takes Tony's hand in his own, and it’s the same as always, warm — so fucking warm — and large, fingers wrapping around him.

“Oh my — Oh my god, Rhodey,” Tony stammers, unable to say anything else, anything of substance. 

Rhodey bends his head, mutters, “I know,” like he’s not even sad about it, the fact his fucking spine is crushed. 

Tony shakes his head, tries to get closer to him. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

Rhodey looks up at him, squeezes his hand tightly. “It’s...It’s not your fault. Not really. I went into that situation fully aware of the risks, just like everyone else there.” he clears his throat, and says the next thing almost, almost, nearly smiling, “It's just funny, that it happened now. You know, not after 20 years in active combat, you think the chances would be...would be..” he trails off a little grin that he displayed proudly and cynically. 

Tony laughs, low and rocking and cynical, and it stops suddenly as his chest cracks sharply in pain. His cry nearly leaves his throat. “Well, you had to pick your moment,” he says, once he can breathe.

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, eyes on the thick bandage wound around Tony's chest. Tony places a hand over it, like it’ll be hidden by a palm and a few fingers. 

“I’ll fix you up nice, Rhodes...just let me get into the lab. I'll have you up and at ‘em real quick.”

Rhodey half-smiles, and looks down at his legs. “I know you will, Tony.”

Tony grins confidently. “Yeah, I will. In fact, I’ve already spent too long just sitting—” he tries to set up, but his chest protests the movement violently, whiting out his vision for a moment with the pain, like a poker shoved under his collarbone. He collapses, through no choice of his own. Fuck, that's worse than sitting in a filthy fucking cave with a car battery keeping you heart pumping, staring at little bits of shrapnel still painted in your blood and the doctor’s dirty hands who pulled them out of your chest tissue and into that jar.

“Tony!” Rhodey says sharply, and tries to stand but fails, “Tony,” he says again. “Hey, no. You're hurt, bad. You can’t do that.”

Tony grunts in announces, and then collapses, noting faintly that it really does hurt. “Where's  Helen ?” he asks distractedly, wondering what’s new in his clusterfuck of a sternum.

“Dr. Cho’s already been. She’s the one that saved you, and rebuilt all the chest that she could. Believe me, this is a lot better than you came in with.”

“So good enough then,” Tony shrugs, and pulls his IV out. 

“No,” Rhodey insists, “You need to rest.” Tony rolls his eyes and tuts at him, but he only looks more frustrated. “Genuinely, Tony, this isn't nothing, this time. This is real. You're more hurt than you've ever been.”

Tony squints at his chest closer. He can't tell what's under the bandages, if his arc reactor is still lodged between his ribs. He can't tell anything past the fact his heart is still beating. “I guess vibranium can do a lot, huh?”

“Tony… what'd he do to you?” Rhodey asks, morbidly curious and oddly reverent. 

“You know, evidently.” Rhodey just keeps looking at him, so Tony sighs, and laborates, “we fought. I ripped off Barnes' arm. Steve...Rodgers slammed his shield into my chest, and I watched him do it. I saw his eyes as he was deciding he was gonna kill me,” Tony pauses, blinks back the pricking in his waterline, “And he looked like my father as he did it.”

Rhodey looks at him, rageful and sympathetic and somehow just as hurt. Steve was his friend too. 

Tony shrugs and looks at the wall. It makes it easier. “That's not even...not even the worst bit. No, that was after Rodgers left. It was….was  _ so fucking cold  _ and I couldn't move, since the suit died — and that shit’s heavy without hydraulics — so I was just lying on the floor of that depressing base, looking at his shield. It was like a political cartoon in the paper.” Tony laughs, shakes his head cynically, “You know, I never thought...never really thought it would get that bad. Then it did. Then I looked into his eyes and there was no...no hesitation, at all. Just anger.”

“Everything's been so fucked up,” Tony sighs, frustrated, and then the guilt hits him in the stomach like a baseball and he looks over at Rhodey, his oldest friend, the one that’s never left him, not once, and what’s it gotten him? Some fucked up spine. That’s all. “I fucked it all up.”

Rhodey finally sounds sad when he murmurs, “You really didn't, Tony.”

Tony just shrugs and goes back to staring at the ceiling, at the whiteness and plaster and paint and emptiness. He's suddenly thinking of her. When he was fourteen, he was running from the cops — busted for smoking weed in an old abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn — jumped a fence, landed bad, and ended up in a hospital room just like this one, only it was his leg in a cast, not his heart, and his mother here instead of Rhodey and she was far more pissed off than Rhodey is. 

“I miss my mom.”

Rhodey looks at him closer. He hasn't talked about his parents in years. 

“Fuck,” Tony says, like he’s surprised, “I really miss my mom.”

Rhodey’s in new depths here. “She was...she was nice, Tony. You should,” he says uncertainty. 

“I miss her pasta,” Tony remarks, ignorant of Rhodey’s plight. 

Rhodey laughs riotously. “We all miss her pasta. I don't know what she did to it, but it tasted  _ so good _ .”

“Didn't it?” Tony smiles. “I think the recipe book is still around, somewhere. Maybe that storage unit. Maybe still in Long Island. We should look for it, and find out her secret ingredient.”

“You always say that,” Rhodey murmurs, and it's true. Tony’s said it a dozen times since 1991, but it never seems to get any closer. 

“Well, I mean it,” Tony decides, “First thing after the dust is settled, we make that fucking carbonara.”

Rhodey sounds sad again. “The dust never settles with you, Tony.”

“You sound like Pepper.”

Rhodey nods in admission, and smiles. “I do. She’s usually right.”

“Usually,” Tony admits, a little chagrined. 

Tony doesn't say anything for a long while, then, “God, I only ever get this reflective after I nearly die. Maybe I should do it more often,” Tony hypotheses, “Haven't thought about all this stuff in...in years.”

“Please don't,” Rhodey chuckles. 

“Don't what? Die or think about it?” Tony jokes, straining to look at him. 

“You know,” Rhodey says fondly. 

Tony just hums and leans back to rest, staring at the ceiling. It’s infinitely entertaining. He means it. There's a little bubble in the paint there, a crack in the corner. An odd little stain to the left of him and the right of Rhodey. 

“A kid’s been calling you. Says his name is Peter Parker.”

Tony tries to look at him again, but just settles for, “Bring me the phone.”

“Hey, Mr. Parker,” he murmurs into the phone, his chest aching. He closes his eyes for a moment, tries to control his breathing while Peter chatters on the other end. 

“Mr. Stark! Hi, oh my god. I'm so glad you called me back. I’ve been calling you for like forever! Anyways, are you okay?”

“I'm just fine,” he says, staring at the wall. The wall makes it easier. 

“They’re saying you're in hospital," Peter just disputes him. Tony can hear the sound of a sleepy teenage bedroom in the back, Peter's spotify playlist murmuring softly, pots and pans banging in the other room as May washes the dishes or cooks up something monstrous, and if he really strains -- the general ambience of New York -- sirens and guys shouting on street corners and people arguing in bodegas. 

He makes a dismissive noise, “A little banged up, is all. Will be out soon, before you know it, Mr. Parker.”

“Was it — was it Germany?” he asks, afraid and curious. 

“No, Petey. Wasn't you. Some stuff went down, after.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. I know I messed up.”

His voice nearly breaks when he says, “You did...you did a great job, kid. But I never should have involved you. You were just a backup, but I never should have brought you to Germany. It was wrong.”

“No, no, sir, I w— I wanted to go,” Peter argues with him. 

Tony sighs back, “You're a kid. A smart kid, and a kid with more morals than I've ever had, but you're a kid, and one day, when you're old and alive you're gonna look back and go,  _ what the fuck? Why did he bring me? _ And I probably won't be there to say that, it’s because I'm selfish. Because I thought it would be best to have another person on my side, and I forgot you are a person. A kid. And I brought you into the warzone. And I won't ever forgive myself for it.” Tony swallows tightly, and wipes his eyes. Rhodey is looking away conveniently. “I gotta go.”

“Okay, Mr. Stark,” the kid says, like he doesn't believe him but he’s accepting to make it easy.

“I— I’m sorry, Peter,” Tony stammers, choking up a little. 

“Don't be,” he says quietly, and Tony is reminded how small Peter is, how young. At that age, he was at MIT, and he was lost, and scared, and only had Rhodey, and it was just the beginning of the rest of the shit. 

“Right,” he says. Tony can't ever accept it. “I gotta get to work,” he says again, and hangs up on the kid.

He looks over at Rhodey who just says, soft and tired, “Tony, you  _ can't.” _

“You know, that's never really deterred me,” he grins at him, then sighs at the look on Rhodey’s face, “I have to do this, Platypus. I...I started this mess, or, Fury started it, but — but that is not really an option, anymore, is it? The point is, I fucked it up, I'm the reason there's been so much death and destruction and bureaucratic chaos.”

“You'll kill yourself,” Rhodey says, “please, Tony, I don't want to lose you.”

“I've tried a few times, Rhodes, to save the world instead of myself, but I always wake up. I always make it out. I’m sure this time will be no different.”

“Tony…” Rhodey’s saying but Tony’s done with soft and tired and hospitals. 

“Nurse! Get me outta this shit!” He looks at Rhodey, who leans against his wheelchair. Tony closes his eyes, just one more time. He's tired of putting Rhodey through this, ever since he was 15. Worse thing is, Rhodey never seems to leave, he only gets disappointed, but he always gets forgiving, too. Maybe if he left it would be easier, Tony sometimes thinks, but then he comes to his senses. Nothing would be better without Rhodey. “I’ve gotta finish all of it.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> hey, thanks for reading!
> 
> leave a comment/kudos if u enjoyed :)
> 
> xx


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